Chapter 275: He’s Got Something—Unfortunately…
by cnwebnovelsChapter 275: He’s Got Something—Unfortunately…
Zhuang Xiaodie was ladling soup for Wu Chen.
He had just taken the bowl from her when he heard Lei Cheng say “Young Master Ding.” His hand paused for an instant. He turned to look at Lei Cheng, then set the bowl down in front of himself, entirely naturally.
The dining room went very quiet.
Lei Cheng was the host. With him on a call, naturally no one would make noise.
Hu Xilin was there too. When he heard “Young Master Ding,” the hand lifting his chopsticks stopped as well.
He glanced at Wu Chen, then at Lei Cheng.
“Boss Lei, are you free tomorrow afternoon? Would it be convenient to talk?” Ding Ruilong’s voice came through the phone.
“I have time. What, Young Master Ding… you’re coming to Donghai tomorrow?” Lei Cheng said into the phone. As he spoke he glanced at Wu Chen again and traded a look with him.
“That’s right. I’ll be there tomorrow. If it’s convenient, Boss Lei, pick a place,” Ding Ruilong said.
“Is that really necessary?” Lei Cheng replied. “Young Master Ding, you’ve already gone to Lei You. There doesn’t seem to be much point in talking to me too, does there?”
“Hahaha! What are you talking about, Boss Lei?” Ding Ruilong laughed loudly. “You’re you, and your brother is your brother. I’ve heard about the bad blood between you two. As an outsider it isn’t really my place to comment. But… if you’re interested, Boss Lei, we can talk. Who knows? I might even be able to help you out.”
The implication was unmistakable.
“What do you mean?” Lei Cheng asked.
“You understand me, Boss Lei. We’re not enemies. And I have no particular friendship with your brother. If you can help me out, then naturally I can help you out too. How about we meet and talk?”
When Ding Ruilong was not raging, he was very good with words.
He had just dangled an enormous promise in front of Lei Cheng.
His line of thinking even matched Wu Chen’s: use the feud between Lei Cheng and Lei You to build a close tie with Lei Cheng.
Under ordinary circumstances, had Lei Cheng not known Wu Chen, he would certainly have been tempted.
Building a good relationship with Ding Ruilong and drawing on the Ding family’s influence—however he looked at it, there was only upside.
Unfortunately for Ding Ruilong, Wu Chen had moved first.
“Young Master Ding, from the sound of it you seem to know something.” Lei Cheng sounded thoughtful. “What can you do for me about what happened ten years ago?”
The question alone made him sound tempted.
An act, of course, staged for Ding Ruilong.
He was drawing him out.
“Does what happened ten years ago really matter?” Ding Ruilong said, a smile in his voice. “What matters is now. Your father has only two sons. If something were to happen to one of them, then the other would be the sole heir, wouldn’t he? We can go through the details in person. The phone isn’t convenient…”
Lei Cheng’s expression shifted slightly.
Something happens?
One of them dies?
The other becomes sole heir?
It should have been enormously tempting.
It could even have been seen as giving Lei You a taste of his own medicine. Back then Lei You had done precisely that to him.
But—
Wu Chen had gotten there first.
There was no possibility of Lei Cheng standing with Ding Ruilong now.
So what Lei Cheng felt was not temptation.
It was sharper wariness, deeper caution toward Ding Ruilong.
If Ding Ruilong could say this to Lei Cheng, then naturally he could say the same to Lei You.
Lei Cheng fell silent.
He appeared to be thinking.
In fact he traded another look with Wu Chen. He did not know whether Wu Chen could hear the voice on the phone clearly.
The dining room was extremely large, a room to itself. The table was a long Western-style one, and he and Wu Chen were not seated side by side.
Even in the silence, everyone but Lei Cheng could catch only the faintest trace of the voice.
“Meet in person…” Lei Cheng murmured, though his eyes were on Wu Chen.
The words were for him.
Wu Chen gave him a small nod.
“…All right, then. What time can you get here tomorrow afternoon?” Lei Cheng said into the phone, as though he had finally made up his mind.
“Any time after two. You choose the time and place. Keep it confidential,” Ding Ruilong said.
“Then…” Lei Cheng thought a moment and gave him a specific time and meeting place.
A couple more sentences, and they hung up.
It had to be admitted—
Ding Ruilong had something.
It was easy enough to see that calling Lei You first and then calling Lei Cheng at this particular hour had been deliberate.
He wanted Lei Cheng to know he had called both brothers, while also making clear he was not close to Lei You.
That would leave Lei Cheng with the impression that whichever brother helped Ding Ruilong would win Ding Ruilong’s backing.
It gave Lei Cheng something to hope for and applied psychological pressure in the same stroke.
If Lei Cheng did not win Ding Ruilong over, Ding Ruilong would go and help his elder brother.
Add the pressure Lei You was already putting on him…
If Lei Cheng was clever, he should know what to do.
There was another advantage to the approach.
It would keep Lei Cheng from tipping Li Ruobing off.
With his own family’s affairs now tangled into it, Lei Cheng would not tell Li Ruobing in advance about the specifics of a secret meeting with Ding Ruilong.
Ding Ruilong really was clever.
Unfortunately…
After the call ended, Lei Cheng looked at Wu Chen.
“Let’s eat first,” Wu Chen said with a smile.
“Eat, eat.” Lei Cheng smiled too, then called to Tao Manying. “Darling, pass me the wine. I’ll open—”
Several bottles of 2000-vintage Romanée-Conti stood on the table.
Open the wine.
Eat.
Talk.
Wu Chen did not raise Ding Ruilong, so Lei Cheng understood he did not want it discussed at the table.
He did not raise it either, and they talked about other things.
What Lei Cheng did not know was that Wu Chen had known well in advance that Ding Ruilong would call him that evening.
Wu Chen had even known the exact content of the conversation.
He did not need to ask.
He knew all of it.
Because all of it had happened on the previous “July 20.”
Although Wu Chen had not met Lei Cheng in person on that July 20, the two had spoken on the phone several times. Lei Cheng had called again that night to say Ding Ruilong had contacted him and had laid out the situation in detail.
The difference was that on the previous July 20, Lei Cheng had not arranged a time or place to meet Ding Ruilong.
He had not wanted to see the man at all. He found him insufferable.
This time the meeting was set.
Because this time Wu Chen was present when the call came, and he had signaled Lei Cheng to agree.
The meal lasted more than an hour.
Over the idle conversation, Hu Xilin learned that Zhuang Xiaodie was Wu Chen’s woman.
He had no particular reaction.
He did not care enough to dwell on it. His mind was wholly occupied by his wife’s affair.
The atmosphere over dinner was very good.
Lei Cheng mentioned again the possibility of Tao Manying working with Zhuang Xiaodie in the future, if the chance came.
No one drank too much. Only slightly tipsy.
Except Hu Xilin.
He had too much on his mind and drank in gloomy silence.
By a little after eight he was thoroughly drunk, slumped over the table and no longer moving.
Around eight-thirty, dinner ended.
Wu Chen and Lei Cheng went up to the second-floor study, drank tea to clear their heads, and talked privately about Ding Ruilong.
As for the drunken Hu Xilin, Lei Cheng had his driver and bodyguards come into the villa and take him home.
By around nine that night, Wu Chen and Lei Cheng had more or less finished and had settled everything.
Lei Cheng wanted Wu Chen and Zhuang Xiaodie to stay the night. A villa that size naturally had room.
But Wu Chen said he still had something to do and declined.
Lei Cheng did not press.
They went downstairs.
Wu Chen called over Zhuang Xiaodie, who was chatting with Tao Manying.
They left.
Wu Chen drove after drinking.
But with his inhumanly high mental stat, even being genuinely drunk would not have affected him much.
And he was not drunk.
More than half an hour later—
around 10:10 p.m.
Fukang Road, South District.
This was part of the old city, not far from the South District’s bar streets. But at this hour, set against the neon and noise and crowds one block over, Fukang Road was desolate.
Hardly a car on the street.
Not a person in sight.
A backstreet.
Wu Chen pulled over at the curb and looked toward the mouth of an alley diagonally ahead.
“Mr. Wu… aren’t we going home?” Zhuang Xiaodie turned toward him, unable to keep the question in.
She hardly knew Donghai’s roads. She did not know where they were, still less why he had stopped here.
“Shh.” Wu Chen raised a finger, signaling her to be quiet.
She fell obediently silent.
He glanced at his watch again to confirm the time.
Silence.
One minute later—
“Ahhh! Help! Somebody help! Help me!”
A woman’s scream tore out of the alley.